Please Give Me a Reason (Or, Mother Rabbit)
by Alitote
Summary: "You can't jump Arthur, you know that." Francis said sweetly into the phone. "Why?" Arthur whispered, "What's the point?"


**I do not own Hetalia and the Cover Image is not mine.**

Biiiiiit…..  
Biiiiiiit….  
Biiiii-"You have reached the automated answering service of Arthur Kirkland, please leave a message after the beep." BEEP  
"Iggy, I know you have your phone on you. Answer me now or else I'm gonna do something to your precious clock tower!"  
Biiiiit….  
Biiiit…..  
Biiii-"You have reached the automated answering service of Arthur Kirkland, please leave a message after the beep." BEEP  
"Umm… England? America said you were upset and that he couldn't find you… and it's been an hour and a half since you let anyone know where you were. Kumajiji's currently trying to sniff you out but please call someone back. I know France is looking for you right now, and he seems really worried but I don't know why. I mean, it was just something stupid America said right? He says stupid things all the time right? Anyway… call someone back okay? Oh and this is Canada by the way!"  
Biiiit…  
Biiiit….  
Biii- "WHAT IS IT?!"  
"Ah, Mon cher you finally answered a call. I'm so very proud of you."  
Arthur huffed, leaning against the wall of the stone bridge and looking up at the violently blue sky, "It's rather hard to ignore the world when it's vibrating in your pocket every twenty seconds."  
"Now why would you want to be ignoring the world Angleterre?" Francis asked softly, walking hurriedly down the streets and looking this way and that.  
Arthur was quiet for a moment, looking down at the deep drop over the edge, where the water rushed violently passed over large, sharp rocks. His grip tightened on the stone of the bridge, he'd never liked water… Even as a pirate (it was bad luck to be able to swim after all).  
"Because…" He muttered after a moment more of silence, his voice hollow and empty and not "Arthur" at all, "The worlds… the world doesn't like me…"  
Francis bit back a tired chuckle. So it was one of those moods again. Oh his poor Angleterre, his poor Iggy, plagued by these moments of feeling helpless and hated and better off not anywhere…  
They were rather heartbreaking when you had to watch from the sidelines.  
"Really Angleterre, the world doesn't like you?" Francis raised an eyebrow, passing another dead end street. Where was he?!  
"How else are you to explain everything?" Arthur snapped in that empty, dead voice, "Why America hates me and everyone leaves me and-"  
"Honestly Arthur, do we all really leave you when it isn't to go back home for a short while?" Francis interrupted. Arthur swallowed, the sound carrying over the line and Francis sighed loudly, "My Angleterre, mi amor, what are you really upset about? The fact that America was his usual idiot-self? Did he insult your eyebrows again?"  
"Shutup Francis." Arthur snapped.  
"Fine, just stew over your eyebrows then. But tell me where you are so we can go get something to eat alright?"  
Arthur was silent for a long time, staring down into the rushing water as those dark whispers in his head spoke a mile a minute, tearing apart and analyzing alot of Francis' good-natured ribs and seeing them as true insults, which they then turned like poison-tipped swords to stab at Arthur's heart and head.  
"No…" He whispered after a long minute.  
"No?" Francis repeated, stopping short on the sidewalk and nearly knocking down an old woman walking behind him, "What do you mean no?"  
"I mean no…" The hollowness seemed to have increased in Arthur's voice.  
"Arthur where are you, this isn't funny anymore."  
"I don't want to tell you."  
"Why?"  
"… I wanna jump."  
"Jump?" Francis looked around at the roofs of the buildings, wondering if the Englishman was perhaps leaned against the edge of one, watching him, "Are you somewhere high up?"  
"To me… I'm gonna jump Frog, don't try to stop me."  
Francis swallowed, "Why are you gonna jump?"  
Arthur didn't answer, and for a long minute Francis was terrified he'd hung up.  
"Hello?" Francis sang sweetly into the reciever, "Tell me England, why do you want to jump?"  
"Do you think I'll survive? Being what we are and all…" It was like the idiot wasn't listening anymore!  
"Arthur please, just tell me where you are…" Francis pleaded, taking off at a more hurried pace down the street.  
"Maybe I should try to do something fancy on my way down, try and break something so it's not just hitting the water and coming back up with a few cuts and bruises… if I hit it at the right angle I might snap my neck Francis." There was a hint of demented glee in his voice and it twisted Francis' stomach uncomfortably.  
"Arthur…" He said gently into the phone, "Do you remember the day we met?"  
"No, why?"  
Francis chuckled, slowing to a jog, "Well, I guess I shouldn't expect you to remember. After all you were so small… probably small enough to fit inside a bread box. Anyway, I found you in a large bush, under this giant tree-it was beautiful really, the scene."  
"… what does that have to do with anything?"  
"Well, you were in the bush because there was a rabbit hole under it. And you'd just removed the mother rabbit I believe, and you were talking to it. I thought you were a spirit at first, not realizing anyone had been in the bush of course, and for a moment I thought maybe the spirit was taking the rabbit because it was some sort of Nature Grim Reaper-foolish yes?"  
"Yes."  
"Anyway, there you are, sitting with a rabbit in your lap and you're talking to it. You were crying I remember, and you were begging the mother not to die because her babies needed her still, that they weren't going to survive without her."  
"So?"  
"You've never liked death mon doux, you cried whenever one of your animal friends died and I would help you bury them… then we'd sit by the lake and just watch the life that surrounded us, surely you remember that?"  
Arthur was silent, wondering what any of this crazy talk had to do with jumping off a bridge.  
"You can't jump Arthur, you know that." Francis said sweetly into the phone.  
"Why?" Arthur whispered, "What's the point? What's the reason for feeling like this all the time? For dealing with everyone? America and his idiotic pig-headedness? Canada and his ability to just drop off the face of the earth before popping back up to scare the bloody hell out of me? Or you with all your perverted jokes and attempts at molesting me?!"  
"The reason?" Francis laughed.  
"Yes, give me a reason for continuing this madness."  
"Mon cher you've never needed a reason before. And one from me no less? Where's the England I knew? The one that would spit fire before getting told what to do? That made sure I felt the sting of every defeat?"  
"You really want someone like that in your life?"  
"Yes, yes mon cher because he's also the one that I'm guaranteed to have a conversation with at every meeting-even if it's a shouting match. He's the one who helped me raise my little Matthieu, and let me visit on some occasions even though he was terrified I'd do something to his poor boys-"  
"Well you would have, you sick bastard…"  
Ignoring the accusation, Francis chuckled, "He's also the one who tried to grow his hair out like mine so he could be just like me. It was so cute and so terrifying at the same time, this furry little caterpillar rising out of the grass without any warning."  
"It took me months to grow my hair out you insensitive Frog!"  
"And then a few months later I found out he'd snuck all the way to France just so he could spy on my latest fashions. I laughed so hard when he told me, blushing rather endearingly I might add, about how he'd run face-to-crotch into a cod-piece."  
"Well it was embarrassing you twit!"  
"Ah, and he's also the one I fell in love with a long time ago, a long, long time ago-so long ago that he doesn't remember half our adventures together but that's alright because I do."  
Arthur was silent, listening intently as Francis panted into the phone from all the running.  
"And never once," the Frenchman continued once he'd caught his breath, "Has that little brat ever asked for a reason to be here or a reason to go on living. He was to busy conversing with fairy folk and plundering my ships to bother wondering why he should be standing where he was at that moment or the point of throttling me when I said something perverted. And he most certainly never thought about trying to end all his little adventures-not even when the stupid American boy he'd cared for so deeply tore out his heart and threw it in the dust."  
"Which you helped with!"  
"Anyway, how can that little boy in the bush, begging a mother rabbit to not leave her loved ones behind be the man standing on a bridge asking for a reason to not leave his loved ones?"  
"What?"  
Arthur turned to see Francis approaching from behind, sweaty and hair windblown from all the rushing around.  
"You want a reason mi amour? This is your reason," Francis was standing before Arthur now but still speaking into the phone, his voice literally echoing in Arthur's ear, "You are the most beautiful, fiery little mother rabbit I've ever met and to end such a sight would be the worst tragedy to befall this world or any other. One so horrible I wouldn't be able to survive and would surely not wait around to see-you can't get rid of me Angleterre because wherever you go I need to be there so we can kick one another around and sit and watch life go by."  
"F-Francis…"  
"And if you really are going to leap off that bridge then I'm going with you, so you don't have to be alone in the next world when you feel like it's ignoring you."  
"F… Francis…"  
Francis slipped his phone into his pocket, using the now free hand to reach out and caress one of Arthur's blushing cheeks, "Although I don't see how, it's rather hard to ignore you're whiny voice." With a great tug, he pulled Arthur away from the ledge and pressed their bodies close together, tucking the short Brit's head under his chin. Large tears were staining his coat but he didn't care, Arthur was there, standing before him, hugging him, living. It was all Francis could hope for, all he wanted.  
Arthur trembled, fists holding tight to the fabric of the Frog's jacket like it was a life line (and in a way it was). All the dark thoughts whispering deceit and lies into his ears couldn't touch him, barred from entering by the warm arms encircling him.  
"Papa!"  
Both men turned to see a white ball of fuzz tearing towards them, it's owner close behind with his golden wavy hair bouncing from side to side in a pony tail, his shorter haired brother tearing after behind him.  
"Ah, the mother rabbit's children have arrived." Francis muttered as the white polar bear tackled them both to the ground, nose confirming he'd found Arthur before shuffling lazily back to his owner, who picked him up and held him like a teddy bear.  
"Danggit Iggy," Alfred complained, looking annoyed, "Next time you decide to storm out leave a note for where you're going. Big Ben almost got knocked down a few feet."  
"Don't pretend you deserved to run around in the November air for an hour or two…" England sniffed, rubbing the reds of his eyes away quickly.  
"All I said was-"  
"Don't!"  
Francis and Matthew chuckled, the Canadian stooping down to look at his "parents" with a twinkle in those violet eyes.  
"Well, shall we get off this bridge and go somewhere for dinner?"  
"I know a place…" Arthur muttered, allowing Francis to pull him to his feet.  
"Is it a place where you're gonna get drunk and demand to let me make you my big brother again?" Alfred whined.  
"Non, it will be me he'll be demanding an invasion of the lower regions from!" France argued, an arm pinning a red-faced Arthur to his side as they walked along the path, leaving behind the stone bridge and it's rushing water and it's sharp rocks.


End file.
